


When I’m Holding You Tight

by tacomuerte



Series: Dianakko Week 2017 [3]
Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Cuddles, Developmental Differences, Dianakko Week 2017, F/F, Fluff, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacomuerte/pseuds/tacomuerte
Summary: Akko asks the eternal question: Will Mommy ever get to sleep in on a Saturday?The answer is, of course, no. Mommy will never get to sleep in.Dianakko Week 2017: Day 3 - Cuddles





	When I’m Holding You Tight

_Cause when you open your eyes, I feel alive_  
_My heart beats so damn quick when you say my name_  
_When I'm holding you tight, I'm so alive_

— “Blue” by Beyoncé

* * *

Akko enjoyed sleeping in on Saturdays, especially the heavy feeling of hazy half-awake drowsiness as she drifted back and forth between sleep and dreams, all while tightly wrapped in her warm cocoon of blankets. It was a perfect way to start a beautiful spring day. 

No stress. No work. No magical emergencies demanding immediate attention.

Only soft blankets and peace and quiet and warmth… until the bouncing started. While Akko did her best to convince herself that it was just a dream, small but surprisingly heavy feet began repeatedly jumping up and down on her bed “to see if Mommy is awake.”

Akko groaned, knowing she didn’t have to open her eyes to recognize her oldest daughter (by four whole minutes). Her lovely baby, Bernadette, was an early riser like Mother, the children’s name for Diana, although she was also an impatient, hyperactive troublemaker, like Mommy, the children’s name for her.

When the jumping up and down didn’t elicit the proper response quickly enough, It was time to escalate to Stage Two. Her beautiful daughter’s high-pitched, extremely loud voice echoed in the room, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” over and over and over… 

And then when even that didn’t work, her adorable daughter escalated to Stage Three as her voice rose to an even higher pitch (although Akko could never figure out how that was humanly possible) shouting, “MommyMommyMommyMommy!!!”over and over and over while shaking Akko’s shoulder nonstop. 

Akko loved many things about her life. She loved having two simultaneously successful careers as a stage performer spreading the joy of magic to the world by night and serving as a liaison between the magic communities and the governments of the world by day. She loved magic, and she loved practicing magic in all its forms. She loved her friends from Luna Nova, and she was still close to them even a decade after graduation. 

She especially loved her beautiful, brilliant wife, Diana, and their two darling four-year-old twins. 

Most of the time.

Right now though, she was questioning so many of her life choices. Akko opened one eye instantly annoyed that her child was doing this before the sun had even risen. Her eye honestly it felt like she had at least five pounds of grit in it. She had been up late last night prepping for Monday’s meeting between the Swedish parliament and the local troll union of Oslo, who wanted shorter hours or more pay… or preferably both.

However, neither parliaments nor troll unions nor Mommy’s busy schedule nor the decency of waiting until the sun was up were items of much concern to hyperactive four year-olds who had urgent needs to communicate.

Trying to focus the one eye she had open on the still-bouncing child, Akko tried to figure out what she had done in her life to deserve this. She willfully ignored the fact that what her daughter was currently doing was exactly how she used to wake her own mother when she was little. At least she had never done so before ten in the morning. Akko had _never_ been an early riser.

Seeing her efforts rewarded with a now-awake Mommy, Bernadette crawled on top of Akko to sit and look down at her with a dazzling smile. Just like every time she laid eyes on one of her babies, a surge of pure affection ran straight through Akko, and she couldn’t help but see so much of Diana in the girl. That wasn’t to say that Bernadette didn’t have traits in common with Mommy, either. She had Akko’s button nose and the same bright, red eyes, but otherwise she was the image of Diana as a child with her delicate cheekbones and the flowing platinum-blonde hair streaked with gold.

“Bernadette,” Akko croaked as she gently removed her daughter from on top of her and sat the squirming toddler by her on the inside part of the bed. “You need to stop that… Right… Now.”

“But I want to _play_ , Mommy!” her daughter complained in a high-pitch whine.

Akko sighed and reminded herself that small children had limited reasoning capabilities. “Why don’t you come lay down beside Mommy and rest?” she said, mustering every bit of sweetness she could as this horrible hour.

“No!” Bernadette whined. “It’s time to play!”

Akko winced and shushed her child. “Bernadette, lower your voice! You’re going to wake everyone in the house!”

At Mommy’s admonishment, Bernadette angrily puffed her cheeks out in a startling impression of Akko when she was determined to have her way, and exclaimed, “But Mommy, you’re the only one asleep!”

Akko knew Diana had risen early as she always did. There was a dim memory of her wife telling her that she was going to go for a run and then get some writing done while the twins were still asleep.

“I know Mother’s awake, Detta,” Akko said, forcing patience into her voice. Bernadette often woke before dawn, but her emotional equilibrium didn’t start to even out until after breakfast, so the risk of tears and tantrums was still high. Anything but the mildest criticism would set her off. “But Kiyoko’s still asleep.”

The younger twin, much like Akko, appreciated sleeping in. If left to her own devices, Kiyo wouldn’t get up before noon.

“Nuh uh!” Bernadette insisted loudly, pointing at the floor. “She’s right here!”

Opening her other eye, Akko raised her head to look around the dimly lit bedroom. As she sat up, she noticed the clock read a quarter to six, which drew frustrated groan from the exhausted woman. She looked down to the floor and sure enough, the quieter twin sat there playing with her beloved Dolly. Noticing Mommy’s gaze, her younger daughter, Kiyoko, looked up with a soft smile, but Akko could see the telltale signs of crankiness—slightly slumped shoulders and dark circles under her eyes—that Kiyo always showed when she was woken up too early by her impatient twin. 

“Kiyoko,” Akko said, thankful she had one quiet child who appreciated sleep. “What are you doing down there, Sweetheart?”

Kiyoko opened her mouth to answer, but before her twin could answer, Bernadette loudly declared, “Kiyo’s being boring!”

“Inside voice,” Akko warned Bernadette. Kiyoko narrowed her crystal blue eyes at her sister while the delicate mouth that looked just like Diana’s drew into a thin, angry line. Akko repressed a shudder. She’d been on the receiving end of _that_ look from Diana more times than she cared to remember. Everything about Kiyoko was reserved and measured, just like Diana, until she lost her temper and that reserve became icy and harsh. 

“C’mere, Kiyo,” Akko said, sitting Bernadette beside her again and holding out her arms. 

Kiyoko sighed and stood, gripping her doll tight. Akko smiled at the irony that the daughter who favored her so much physically, with her chestnut-brown hair and round cheeks, was so much like her other mom in temperament. Kiyoko, who was always clingy when she was tired, allowed herself to be pulled up onto the bed while Bernadette fidgeted on Akko’s other side.

“Bernadette,” Akko said, speaking gently. “Do you have something you want to say to your sister?”

Detta tilted her head, completely at a loss. Akko resisted rolling her eyes because that was the _last_ thing she wanted the precocious child picking up on. Diana might literally kill them both if Detta started rolling her eyes at her. Instead, she prompted the willful twin, “It’s not nice to call someone boring, Bernadette. Aren’t you sorry?”

Bernadette’s eyes went wide and she gripped Akko’s arm as she pleaded, “But she _is_ boring, Mommy!” It was as if the fate of the world rested on Mommy acknowledging Bernadette’s younger sister was boring.

Akko was unimpressed by the argument to say the least, but before she could find a diplomatic way to defuse what looked to be a major spat brewing between her children, her youngest decided she had had enough of her sister this morning.

“You’re mean, Detta!” Kiyoko shouted, her features twisting into an expression that Akko knew from hard experience meant tears were close at hand.

Bernadette’s lower lip trembled, signaling that she was also near tears, and Bernadette crying always meant a full tantrum. “You’re… you’re…” Bernadette stuttered out, searching for a suitable insult as her tears started to flow. 

“Hey, hey,” Akko whispered, pulling both girls close. “It’s okay, Sweeties. Let’s not fight, okay?”

Bernadette hiccuped as she continued to sob. Giving up, she buried her face in the crook of Akko’s neck and began a full-on wail as Akko rubbed circles on the toddler’s back in a vain attempt to comfort her. Detta always tried to act like she was so fierce, but really she was very sensitive.

Kiyoko huffed, clutching her doll and jumping off the bed before Akko could catch her, stalking towards the door.

“What is going on in here?” Diana asked from the doorway. Kiyoko froze in her tracks, and Bernadette, still letting out a high-pitched keening sound as she cried as hard as she could, looked up from hugging Akko. Kiyo’s tear-filled eyes went wide and Detta’s face went red as she redoubled her efforts, turning her high-pitched cries into a full-throated screaming fit at the thought of Mother being angry. 

Part of Akko felt supremely annoyed because neither twin ever seemed to care if _she_ was mad, but Diana? Making Mother mad had to be avoided at all costs. It wasn’t as if Diana spanked them or yelled or even really criticized them. No, she only looked at them with the same long-suffering, disapproving look she gave Akko when one of the brunette’s numerous misadventures went sideways before cleaning up the mess she or the twins had made.

Swiftly moving into the bedroom, Diana scooped the younger twin into her arms and slid into the bed beside Akko, and the two moms kept both twins between them despite each girl trying their best to escape being beside the other. It took over ten minutes to get Bernadette to stop screaming and at that point, Akko was crying herself.

Gradually, Detta stopped her tantrum, reduced to hiccupping sobs and a determined, angry squirming as she tried to force her her way out of Mommy’s arms.

“I thought I asked you not to wake Mommy,” Diana said, holding the struggling Kiyo tight as she rubbed soothing circles on her back the same way Akko was doing for Bernadette, although Mommy was having a much harder time keeping Detta still as she tried to pull away.

“But Mother,” Bernadette whined as she fiercely rubbed tears from her eyes, having finally wriggled free of Akko’s arms. “I was so bored!” She emphasized this by throwing her arms wide and collapsing backwards dramatically.

Kiyoko looked up at Diana wearing her most offended expression. “Mother,” she complained. “She yelled at me!”

Akko decided it was time to fight dirty. “If you two are good and lay down for at least an hour, I’ll take you to the park later.”

Diana’s frown matched Kiyoko’s earlier one as she said, “We do not use bribes to encourage good behavior, Akko.”

Akko’s sharp look and raised eyebrow transmitted her thoughts on that statement clearly: Since when?

“Alright,” Diana surrendered. “We can go to the park if you two behave.”

At the word “park,” Detta sprang up and was practically vibrating with excitement. Once Mother finally agreed to Mommy’s idea, her excitement tripled. “I’m sorry!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “I’m sorry, Kiyo! I was mean, and I’m sorry!”

“You’re not sorry! You only want to go to the park!” Kiyoko shouted back with a sour expression. Her tiny fists were clenched at her sides, Dolly having been dropped and forgotten.

Akko started to intervene, but Diana’s hand on her shoulder along with a shake of her head stopped her. The twins were fighting all the time now, prompting her and Diana to have a long talk about how to help them get along better. They had decided to try letting the girls work things out on their own, since trying to force them to like each other wasn’t working. They would hopefully resolve their own disputes if given a chance… under supervision of course. 

Detta frowned, but sat still. “I _do_ want to go to the park,” she said. For several seconds, she sat very still, and then tears started to flow again, and she stuttered out, “I-I’m bad. I d-didn’t mean to be, K-Kiyo. I’m sorry!”

Akko thought her heart might break in half, but Kiyo’s sniffle stopped her. She looked down at her youngest who was shaking with tears as she pulled away from Diana to embrace her sister.

“You’re not bad,” Kiyo got out through the tears. “I’m sorry, too.”

Diana and Akko hugged them both, and after a few minutes the tears stopped. The four of them laid down as the mothers comforted their babies and tried to get them to smile again.

“We can still go to the park later,” Diana whispered as the girls settled in. “Won’t that be fun?”

That seemed to cheer the girls, and only a few minutes later the two were asleep again, clutching each other tightly. Akko wrapped her arms around her babies as did Diana, and they all squeezed together.

This was perfection. This was everything Akko could ever want. Kiyo’s soft snores tempted her to get her phone to record the sight, and after a few minutes, she reached over and picked it up off the nightstand, recording her tiny sleeping angels and the beautiful woman who had given birth to them as she cuddled them, smiling. 

Diana shook her head and laughed before she motioned to Akko, and they both got up quickly and quietly, exiting the room.

Downstairs, Diana fixed herself a cup of tea, and Akko made her usual morning coffee.

“Croix stopped by last night,” Diana said, tentatively.

“No,” Akko answered, feeling her good mood sour.

“That’s the answer I gave,” Diana chided. “But I didn’t want you to think I was hiding her visit from you in case one of the girls mentioned it.”

Akko smiled lovingly at her wife. “I didn’t think you would say yes. I knew your answer already. I just want you to know I’m always on your side, especially when it comes to our babies.”

Croix wanted to study the twins. She was long reformed, and Akko wasn’t one to hold a grudge, unlike Diana, who still barely tolerated the woman’s presence more than a decade after the Noir Missile Crisis. Akko’s good will stopped, however, when it came to treating her babies like one of Sucy’s test subjects.

The continuing requests by Croix and others weren’t going to stop coming, though, because of the events surrounding the girls’ conception and birth. Their origin had been unusual, to say the very least.

Akko and Diana had, in the years since they graduated from Luna Nova, become go-to witches whenever some sort of dire threat appeared. Akko could understand wanting Diana’s expertise since she was literally a genius, but without the Shiny Rod, Akko couldn’t figure out why anyone would want her along except as Diana’s wife. Diana always insisted that Akko was invaluable and able to come up with unexpected strategies that gave them an edge.

Diana, as always, was proven right as she and Akko had defeated multiple menaces, who wanted to commit various horrible crimes against humanity.

It was on one such mission five years ago when the two women’s souls had to be separated from their bodies in order to fight some creepy thing called a Dream Eater, which was attempting to feast on humanity as they slept. The only way to fight it was to travel to the Astral Plane, so that’s what the two witches did. They had combined their magic to cast a powerful spell to seal the creature back in its home dimension. It wasn’t uncommon for the two of them to combine their magic, although it was rare for witches to be able to do so in the first place. Diana and Akko were unique in that way. Since they had used the Shiny Rod together, the two had discovered they had a knack for synchronizing their magic, becoming far more powerful together than individually.

It seemed, however, that the odd properties of the Astral Plane interacted with their perfectly combined magic in a very startling way. As their souls were reintegrated with their bodies, Chariot, who had been the only witch Akko would trust to watch over her wife while Diana’s spirit was outside her body, detected two extra souls that hadn’t been there before.

After some panicked testing, it was determined that as far as anyone could determine the two babies growing inside Diana were perfectly normal, and nine months later Akko experienced what she had thought impossible. She fell even further in love with Diana as they held their two beautiful babies in their arms.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. Every once in a while, Croix or some other magical researcher would approach them to see if the twins were still healthy, normal girls, and they always came hoping to run more tests. Even if Akko might have been persuaded by Chariot to allow Croix a chance to give the girls an exam, Diana would have gone on a rampage… a completely understandable rampage, as far as Akko was concerned.

Diana smiled and held Akko’s hand tightly. “She brought a letter from Headmistress du Nord with her.”

Akko raised a questioning eyebrow.

“An offer,” Diana explained. “They’d like me to take a position as a full professor at Luna Nova teaching Magic Astronomy.”

Akko started. Teaching at Luna Nova was Diana’s dream, and it angered Akko that Chariot and Croix would use that to try to get them to agree to poking and prodding at the twins. It was especially galling to Akko that Chariot of all people would use a teaching position as bait. 

“How could Chariot do something like that?” Akko asked, furious. Her hands were shaking with anger, and Diana grabbed them in hers to steady Akko.

“Croix insisted she told Chariot she wouldn’t ask when she brought the letter,” Diana explained. “She said that she knew Chariot would be upset, but she couldn’t resist asking when she was faced with the chance. It was… a surprisingly honest admission.”

Akko’s breathing slowed. She was relieved Chariot hadn’t betrayed Diana or her like that.

“I said no to that, too,” Diana continued, holding up a hand to stop Akko from protesting Diana giving up her chance to teach at Luna Nova. “I want the girls to have some sort of normal childhood, and living at Luna Nova would be anything but.”

Akko sighed. They should have discussed the offer first. She could have maybe thought of a way for Diana to have her dream, just as Akko had hers performing. 

Noise from upstairs pulled Akko from her thoughts. She sighed, “It hasn’t even been half an hour.”

She barely had time to get the words out before two sets of small feet thundered down the hallway and down the stairs, and Kiyoko sprinted headlong into the kitchen to clutch Diana’s leg while Bernadette stayed back, hiding behind the edge of the doorframe leading into the room. Both were in tears again.

Akko bent down to check on Kiyoko, brushing her hair and making shushing noises.

Diana asked, “What’s wrong, Honey?”

Kiyoko looked up through her tears accusingly and said in a soft, broken voice, “Y-you left.”

Diana and Akko shared a confused look. 

“Are you still mad at Detta and me for fighting?” Kiyoko asked in a trembling voice.

Diana bent down to hug Kiyo and Akko retrieved Detta, whom she had to pry off the doorframe. 

“No, we weren’t mad at you at all,” Akko said, laughing. “Mommy wanted some coffee.”

“Yeck,” Detta replied from Akko’s arms as Mommy carried her into the kitchen. “It’s bad. You shouldn’t drink it.”

“You are full of opinions, aren’t you, my little one?” Diana commented with a smirk.

Bernadette looked at her as if to say, “Who doesn’t have opinions?”

Akko chuckled as she sat down with the older twin in her lap as Diana did the same with the younger one.

“Mother,” Kiyoko complained, wiping her eyes and holding up her toy. “I dropped Dolly and broke her leg.”

Looking at the doll, Akko could see the leg barely hanging by a thread. Luckily, she always kept her wand on-hand, since you never knew when some crazed, vengeance-seeking witch would barrel into the kitchen. Before anyone could say or do anything, though, Bernadette started struggling in Akko’s arms, snatching the wand from her belt while shouting, “I’ll fix Dolly, Kiyo!”

“Bernadette, don’t—” Akko exclaimed, but before she could finish, the toddler shouted out a fairly advanced spell used to mend broken objects. Magic flared out of the wand, surrounding Kiyo’s doll, fixing it instantly.

Kiyo cheered, and so did Detta until she saw the shocked looks on her mothers’ faces.

“Are you mad?” Bernadette asked in a small, trembling voice.

“Don’t be mad, Mother!” Kiyoko exclaimed looking up at Diana before turning to Akko and begging, “You either, Mommy! She fixed Dolly!”

“Did you…?” Diana tried to ask Akko.

Akko could only shake her head. She most definitely had not taught her daughter to cast that spell. Akko gently retrieved her wand from the toddler’s clutches, hugged Detta tight, and said, “We aren’t mad, Babies, but who taught you to do that?”

Detta looked down, fidgeting. “I read it in Mother’s book.”

“Y-you were reading my texts?” Diana asked, stunned. Those were definitely not intended for four-year-olds.

“I was, too,” Kiyo offered, hoping that if both of them did it that neither Diana nor Akko could be mad about it.

Bernadette nodded. “Yeah, I like fixing magic and Kiyo likes changing magic.”

“And you’ve both been reading Mother’s books on magic?” Akko asked even though the girls had already admitted to doing so. This time both sheepishly nodded yes. Those books were a struggle for Akko to comprehend, and she suddenly felt terrified.

Diana cleared her throat. “I’m proud of you both for being able to use spells at such a young age,” she said, forcing warmth into her voice. “But you have to promise me you won’t do so again unless Mommy or I are there to supervise you.”

“We promise,” the twins said solemnly in unison.

“Okay, girls,” Akko said. “Go put on some play clothes for the park.”

Detta looked at her with narrowed eyes and asked suspiciously, “We get to pick our own clothes?”

Diana sighed and said, “Yes, you can pick your outfit today.” She gave Akko a sharp look as she did so, knowing Bernadette’s choices would be… less than ideal in her opinion.

The two girls bolted out of their mothers’ arms and back up the stairs.

After they were sure the girls were out of earshot, Akko let out a terrified breath. 

“So…” she said, trailing off.

“Yes,” Diana agreed.

They were going to have to let Croix or someone else examine the girls. There was no getting around it. Using magic at the level Bernadette had demonstrated this morning should have been impossible for a four-year-old.

“No one touches them unless you or I are there,” Akko insisted. “Both of us if possible.”

Diana nodded. She looked sick with fear. Akko stood and pulled Diana up into a hug, kissing her softly.

“Do you want to pick someone other than Croix?” Akko asked.

“Yes, I do,” Diana said, tightening her grip on Akko. “She hurt you, Akko. I’ll never forgive her for that.”

“We find someone else then,” Akko whispered as she squeezed Diana back.

“No, it has to be her,” Diana sighed, deflating in her wife’s arms. “No one is better at researching arcane phenomena.”

“Are you sure?” Akko asked. “We can take time to think about this.”

“I’m sure,” Diana whispered.

“We’ll be there with them,” Akko reassured. “Chariot will be, too.”

Diana sighed and they continued discussing how they would approach Croix and when they needed to do it.

Soon enough, the heavy thumping of small feet heralded Detta’s arrival back in the kitchen.

The child looked as she always did when allowed to dress herself, which was to say she looked like a sparkly rainbow had vomited on her. She wore a garish neon yellow shirt with red glitter letters that read “SUPERSTAR!” along with multicolored fireworks (also glitter) decorating the shirt. Paired with her turquoise shorts Detta had decorated herself with orange glitter was her lime green tutu made out of… yes… glittery gauze. Topping everything off were her pink gel shoes that were of course also composed mostly of glitter.

Akko could feel her wife’s blood pressure rising from the other side of the room, but she couldn’t resist needling her. “What?” she asked the rambunctiously dressed child. “No glittery socks?”

Bernadette’s impossibly wide eyes snapped to Mommy. “There are glitter socks?” she said with awe. “Can I have glitter socks, Mommy?”

It was a well-known fact that Akko couldn’t resist anything her wife asked for. Faced with a miniature version of Diana, regardless of how Akko-like the girl acted, looking at her with the best puppy-dog eyes in existence meant she had been a goner from Day One.

“Sure,” she said weakly, hoping Diana didn’t make her sleep on the couch. “We’ll get you socks with glitter on them.”

“Today?!” Detta squealed, and the toddler was so excited her entire body tensed to the point Akko worried she might injure herself or pull a muscle or something.

Sighing, Diana acquiesced. “Yes, Bernadette, today.”

The toddler began marching in a circle around the kitchen singing badly at the top of her lungs, and of course she picked a song Akko truly loathed from the girls’ favorite kids’ show, which Akko also truly loathed. Children had wretched taste… except for her and Diana when they were kids, because Shiny Chariot had always been awesome.

She and Diana were saved further hearing loss due to Bernadette’s impromptu serenading as Kiyoko returned to the kitchen. The younger twin was dressed like the proper lady she was destined to be. She wore a crisp, white cotton blouse with blue trim at the sleeves that matched her pastel blue shorts. Topping it off were her pristine, white patent-leather shoes and knee socks with a blue-and-white argyle pattern. Kiyo had also decided that her favorite toy, Dolly, needed reinforcements and brought along Ducky, her favorite stuffed animal.

Detta ran over to her sister to excitedly inform her that they could buy glittery socks later while Kiyo eyed her sister’s outfit with open suspicion.

“But I don’t _want_ glitter socks,” Kiyo said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?!” Detta yelled, shocked. Now it was her turn to eye her sister suspiciously, like she was some weird, glitter-hating alien. “But glitter socks, Kiyo!”

“Girls,” Akko said. “No fighting, okay?”

“You can both have the socks you want,” Diana added, looking exasperated.

“Thank you, Mother,” Kiyoko said, relief plain on her face at being spared from having to wear something so crass.

Bernadette shrugged, giving up on her sister and her poor taste in fashion.

“Ready to go, girls?” Akko asked, smiling.

“Can we fly, Mommy?” Kiyoko asked, eagerly, which surprised Akko a bit. Usually, she was so reserved, and it was a silly question because of course they would fly. It wasn’t like they owned a car. 

“Of course,” she answered, smiling. “How else—”

“Kiyoko,” Diana interrupted. “What do you mean?”

Surprised, Akko looked back and forth between Diana and Kiyoko as did Detta. The older twin gave Kiyo a furtive glance along with a frown, and Akko realized she must be missing something. 

“You’ll get us in trouble, Kiyo, and they won’t buy me socks!” she protested indignantly.

“Bernadette, that’s enough,” Diana said, sternly, and her older daughter straightened, clamping her mouth shut. “Now, Kiyoko, what did you mean?”

With a world-weary sigh that no toddler should ever make—although Akko suspected Diana had sighed just like that when she was Kiyo’s age, too—she answered, “Can we fly our own brooms, too? Like you and Mommy? We can use magic now if you’re with us, so can we fly, too?”

Akko’s stomach lurched. “You can fly.” It wasn’t a question. “Of course, you can fly,” she muttered. She dreaded finding out they could fly better than their Mommy. Akko was now an accomplished, skilled witch, but her flying was still optimistically described as workmanlike.

“That would explain some of the stains we’ve found,” Diana said, quietly.

Akko’s eyes went wide. “But that would mean…” Two years. They had been finding weird stains on the ceiling for two years and had always chalked it up to Bernadette having a very good throwing arm since their home had very high ceilings, no matter how many times the child denied throwing anything at the ceiling.

Usually, children figured out flying around ten or eleven.

“Not today,” Akko answered Kiyo’s question. “And just like casting spells, you have to have one of us supervising, okay?”

Detta glared at her sister and whined, “Kiyo!”

“No fighting or no going to the park,” Akko warned. “And no glitter socks.”

The older twin was suitably chastened, and Kiyo let her hold Ducky as a peace offering. The two girls walked ahead of their moms, chattering happily again.

“I’ll write Croix tonight,” Diana said, tears in her eyes.

Akko nodded, choked up, too. Their little babies were growing up way faster than they should, magically at least.

“C’mere, you two,” Akko said, shakily. The twins cautiously stopped and Akko moved forward, dropping to her knees and embracing them. “Mommy loves you so much!”

Diana joined the hug immediately. “You two are our most precious gifts,” she added, kissing the girls on the tops of their heads.

“Mother,” Kiyo laughed. “You and Mommy are silly.”

Detta giggled. “We love you, Mommy, and you too, Mother.”

Akko carried Detta as Diana carried Kiyo to the brooms, despite the girls protesting they could walk. The two moms wanted to hold onto these moments as long as they could.

Tomorrow, she and Diana would worry. Today, her family needed to go to the park and have fun. They needed to smile, and Akko Cavendish-Kagari was a specialist in bringing smiles to people’s faces.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is hands-down the fluffiest thing I've ever written. Like toothache-inducing fluff. I kind of avoid fluff. It makes me uncomfortable, so I'm not really sure if I got this right. Hope it's well done, and honestly I wanted to write small children as I've experienced them in real life... and in my extended family there's a lot of experience with small children.
> 
> In the end, I like these kids. They feel real, and that's the reason I've avoided writing children. I don't want to write a character that doesn't feel real to me. Are they cute? I think so. Are they difficult? Yeah, I think so, but that's cool. I like difficult people. I'm difficult people. In the end, children need love, and they need that tactile connection to their parents hence the hugging and cuddling. I wanted to demonstrate that both Akko and Diana are not only unabashedly, completely devoted to each other, but they're also purely devoted to their children... even if they can be small, sleep-denying terrors. ;)
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this and as you may have noticed this is of a duel-series fiction. I like the daughters well enough to explore this AU a bit.


End file.
